That crazy ol' English language...

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signcut

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Jun 12, 2018
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I grew up as speaking English, which is a tremendous advantage compared to those who learn it later in life. I learned Spanish, and mangled German, but I have consistently heard that English is one of, if not the, hardest to learn as a second language because the only steady rule is that there are no steady rules. Letters that are vowels and consonants, different pronunciations for the same letter groupings, spelling inconsistencies... it's no wonder that it can be a real pain in the keister to learn as an adult.

On the other hand, this leads to the ability to be very precise, and yet very vague, within the same sentence, paragraph, or essay. There are those who don't care about that, but while I am not a language snob, I don't know how many other languages lend themselves so readily to colorful wordplay, and wonderful descriptions.

So, what brings this all about? I'm going to guess that there isn't any other language that could have anything like the following sentence, one that uses a single repeated word, no punctuation, and no verbs/adverbs, and still make sense, grammatically and linguistically:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

I may be going crazy waiting for the football season to start...  lol
 
Larry N. said:
Hmmm... I must be dense, since I see no sense in that sentence - er, string of words.
Me neither Larry but that'll be because it's in American English not proper English or even Scottish English ???
 
[quote author=jackiemac]Me neither Larry but that'll be because it's in American English not proper English or even Scottish English ???
[/quote]
LOL Jackie. Having spent 10 years working for a California company in Wales (in the 70's), this used to be the subject of daily ribbing in both directions. When we transferred to the CA facility, we had to learn to speak this funny version of English (I call it Amlish), and used to switch between the two, depending on who we were talking with. Although I went to "grammar school", where they tried to get you to speak Queen's English (but not the posh English taught in college), the locals (in Wales) speak Wenglish. I'm assuming that north of the border you speak Scotlish (?)

For a number of years, we'd have a college professor bring his students on a field trip to the CA facility. He was from Cardiff and, when he and I started chatting, everyone thought we were speaking Welsh. Chris used to have to explain that we were speaking English, with some Wenglish mixed in  ;D
 
?...two nations separated by a common language.?  ;)


(Although seriously Jackie, that can?t be English!)  ;) ;D
 
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."  --Anxiously awaiting the explanation for that!

One day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.
Back-to-back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and came and killed those two dead boys.
If you don't believe this story is true,
ask the blind man, he saw it too!
 
FenderP said:
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."  --Anxiously awaiting the explanation for that!

Simple enough, once you get it spelled out, so to speak...  lol

First, the capitalized Buffalo refer to the city in New York; some of the buffalo are animal, and some have a variant meaning (not common, but not unknown, either). I'll write it out, using parentheses to insert non-essential words that make it more understandable, and brackets for other explanation; if you want to make it easier, re-read it and skip the bracketed info.

Buffalo buffalo [entirely correct inversion of buffalo from Buffalo] (that other) Buffalo buffalo intimidate [variant meaning] (also) bully [another variant] (other) Buffalo buffalo.

The entire sentence is grammatically correct, because no commas are required with a restrictive clause, the word buffalo has multiple meanings, verbs/adverbs are not required in this particular sentence (reduced relative clause), and the plural of buffalo is... buffalo.

I love the English language, but it can be crazy sometimes...

:)
 
Ernie n Tara said:
"Buffalo" is a noun while "buffalo" is used as a verb?

Correct, sir; buffalo is used as a noun, proper noun, and a verb, which seems kinda crazy, but there it is...  lol
 
signcut said:
Simple enough, once you get it spelled out, so to speak...  lol

First, the capitalized Buffalo refer to the city in New York; some of the buffalo are animal, and some have a variant meaning (not common, but not unknown, either). I'll write it out, using parentheses to insert non-essential words that make it more understandable, and brackets for other explanation; if you want to make it easier, re-read it and skip the bracketed info.

Buffalo buffalo [entirely correct inversion of buffalo from Buffalo] (that other) Buffalo buffalo intimidate [variant meaning] (also) bully [another variant] (other) Buffalo buffalo.

The entire sentence is grammatically correct, because no commas are required, the word buffalo has multiple meanings, verbs/adverbs are not required in this particular sentence, and the plural of buffalo is... buffalo.

I love the English language, but it can be crazy sometimes...

:)

Wow.  Got it.  That is pretty cool.  I used to use the ol' "wound the wound with a cloth . . " thing with my students (it's been so long ago I can't even remember it) but that is much better.
 
THAT is cool. Nicely done.  :)) :))


(Guess you weren?t crazy after all  ;) )
 
Well we all know there are some word that have a long list of meanings, and others where there are several words all sound the same.. IE: Two To's Too many. and who knows Which Witch is Which?
 
A classic English tongue twister (say it fast) ...
She sells sea shells on the sea shore.

It's grammatically correct.
 
Tom said:
A classic English tongue twister (say it fast) ...
She sells sea shells on the sea shore.

It's grammatically correct.

Tongue twisters do tend to be alliterative, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
 
Larry N. said:
Tongue twisters do tend to be alliterative, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

Or, 'the sixth sick sheik's sixth son is sick'...
 
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